James Ferraro is a soundscape musician. Tune into any of his albums within his massive catalogue (not entirely available in one spot anywhere, it seems) and you can become absorbed in a totally new world of imagery per album. This is why in a drone/new age/folk soundscape cassette realm, he began to interpret new age records intended for peace through a playful and experimental sampling lens over the course of his many, many early releases.
 	Few modern voices are as present in simultaneous avant-garde electronic satire culture and highly financially successful popular meme culture than James Ferraro has through his innovations in American aesthetic, especially with his contributions to Vaporwave. Ferraro can likely live as a musician due to his partial creation becoming noticed, studied, bloated, and commodified. It's no surprise that Ferraro, despite having total control over his discography, largely decides to keep only his vaporwave-and-onward albums on streaming services-and it pays him well to do such- literally. His name is now sold as a vaporwave figure. He is currently capitalizing with Bladee, a Swedish rapper (who has recently made music with Skrillex and Charli XCX) making a game with Ferraro called Desolation Seed. 
  Years ago, Kanye said roughly around the time NYC Hell 3AM by Ferraro was released, 
    "Lady Gaga is the new creative director of Polaroid. I like some of the Gaga songs, what the fuck does she have to do with cameras?". 
  Understanding who Bladee is, I say 
    "what does Bladee have to do with gaming"? 
  Why is a rapper who made commercials with Microsoft making a game with James Ferraro? Where is the soul in this project? Why does it just look like a shittier Cruelty Squad? 
(yeah okay i knowwww bladee came up from nothing in the beautiful socialist sweden where yung lean had rich parents, drain gang broooo yeah whatever. black kray clears.)
 	I can say with ease that, although I have been able to find only certain songs from musicians that have fulfilled my aesthetic quest other than James Ferraro, his early work is the only music that successfully samples the soul and plays it back to the listener in a loving and primitive fashion. From his very first release from his preteen years and the work with Spencer Clark on The Skaters' discography until the Great Summer Headrush of iAsia in 2009, James Ferraro put out a vast amount of experiments with tape, atmosphere, and sampling.
 	I liken Ferraro's pre-iAsia work to a 'rainforest' of sorts-it is an ecosystem swarming with massive amounts of natural life of all walks, tribal rhythms, the echoes of spirits and esotericism abound, etc. It's one of the most astounding collections of albums put to the internet. It's intrigued me in an intense way since I discovered his much later vaporwave work. If I could compare literature to the aesthetic of his pre-09 work, I would greatly mention the great compilation Technicians of the Sacred as they both share a global abstract energy that focuses most importantly on the feeling of the work more than convention, technique, or strategy.
Boiling the Animal in the Sky
 	This is one of Ferraro's earliest pieces, and it was the album that put this entire concept into place for me. It details a spiritual piece that is genuinely moving, and it's the last thing I would expect Far Side Virtual Ferraro to create. It's chaotic and feels like a crowd chanting for a real, genuine, untainted, loving god. The only pieces of music that I've ever heard that give me the same goosebumps as the second track on Boiling the Animal are Bulgarian choir music and videos of the John Frum cargo cult. The swelling of passion within this piece marks an absolutely psychedelic explosion into maximum frenzy, complete with howling vocals adding harmonies.
iAsia
 	A post-psychedelic world through a hauntological lens (perhaps a requiem on the loss of popularity in radio with the influence of iTunes, streaming services, etc).
 	This was the biggest sign of the changing point to me in his discography. The tribal aspects of his music had, at this point, become enveloped in a permanent border of cold-blooded technological archival. After this album was released, his aesthetic began to change rapidly into the cold persona he has given himself and maintained since the vaporwave days. I also view this album as important because of the higher RYM rating in terms of population, not score.
 	In other words, it comes as no surprise that the album ends with "reverse rainforest," signalling the true death of the Ferraroan Rainforest of new age, folk, and ambient cassette tapes of loveliness. The third reason why I view this album as important to discuss is because when I was relistening to albums I had heard from James Ferraro, I scrolled to iAsia, an album I recall not liking at all, and noting the song titles available on streaming, which, obviously, I viewed as an incredible sign that I was on the right track, noting the name for this essay.
NYC Hell 3 AM
	Money money money money money money money money money money.
 	In the 2013 album, a brutal and hateful corporate hauntology develops a sterilized spellcasting upon Ferraro, presenting himself as an existentialist figure. In a world transported forwards 40 years and with an afro instead of a mohawk, Travis Bickle stares at the nastiness of the 1970s, his hateful demeanor in the driver's seat.
 	What the album ultimately taught me is that hauntology is repetition to the core-the psychedelics chant like the hauntologists, except hauntological chanting is the spell that keeps us down.
 	The album doesn't feel like an entire transmutation from the natural roots of Ferraro's soundscapes, despite how cold and frightening it is (especially with Ferraro's heavily autotuned robot vocals). For example, the narrator of the songs "Fake Pain" and "Beautiful Jon K." seems to discuss demons and devils that wouldn't be out of place in an early Ferraro tape's subject matter. However, these demons in comparison are ones that have lost all sense of hierarchy-they are a sentient thing you can interact with and see the despair of. It is no longer something frightening enough to be worshipped. Therefore, the theological setting of this world is one heavily diluted of spiritual power (which is strange given the amount of time and effort everyday people put into their idols nowadays). This theme is even seen in Ferraro's approach to "soulful" vocals: this is soul music with the soul sucked out years ago. You can hear his mechanical parts taking over and clicking in the background of the recordings. He's a complete husk on this project in a sterilized hell that once was hot. He's well aware of this despairing image of himself and his environment as he robotically sings "I'm still stuck in this world" on "Close Ups." It's a hell that not even demons wish to live in.

  An interesting streaming pattern I noticed about Ferraro's music is that his pre-2009 work is really only available through unofficial uploads, and the post-2009 work is on streaming. The post-2009 work of Ferraro has been uploaded to Spotify (with some missing lesser-known tracks) with the pre-2009 work totally inaccessible on streaming. Why?
 	In a quote given by Ferraro himself for Le Drone in 2012, the reasoning for killing the Ferraroan Rainforest is secretly included in his discussions of Far Side Virtual:
 	". . .in the most remote corners of the world or of only a few people in more tribal settings-they know at this point what an iPad is. I think-we like to think that they don't, but they know. It's like everyone is totally connected in that sense. You know I mean?"
 	"But Peepaw," you ask,
 	"Why is REREX the earliest of his works on Spotify since that follows the new age aesthetic of the early stuff?"
 	Hush now, my child. Peepaw's got the answer.
 	It takes a cyberpunk approach to the folk and new age of his early work. Realistically, it's also because it's more popular on RYM, which is arguably one of the most hauntological websites in existence (look at the themes it gives you unless you PAY for a subscription to do more hauntological organizing of independent music that is becoming increasingly more RYM-coded...). But, regardless, it's an excellent example of the decay of the Ferraroan Rainforest. For example, look at the album cover and how the motherboard shapes are devouring the image of the stingrays. Listen to the album and imagine that sensation and you will note the fear of this era.
  It comes as no surprise that James is continuing to create music, even after he had wiped out and colonized the aesthetic he previously cultivated through music and artwork and his satirical group of music continues to grow in music subcultures while his old tapes go away. The reason for his permanence amongst the multitudes of blogspot cassette musicians of the early 2000s and vaporwave projects of the 2010s is that he creates music understanding that it is an atmosphere to venture within, and each piece and its production and noticeability all create the details which craft a piece together for a lasting atmosphere. Even if his soul is not in the music, he will still make the soundtrack to our downfall-it's a fun detail to point out that he uses a Hieronymus Bosch-esque painting on his 2021 album Terminus, an EBM record that I, frankly, did not enjoy. I didn't feel any soulfulness within it.
  As you can hear and imagine from this chronological timeline, the current soundscape that Ferraro has chosen since 2009 has been one of pure pessimism. The calming solutions offered by digital forces in an impersonal way are bitterly satirized especially on works like Far Side Virtual. In the modern world of technological advancements beyond our comprehension, the Ferraroan Rainforest is one of ancient lore, its bits and pieces of mythology in various stages of rot. Perhaps this is another reason for why the pre-2009 pieces do not exist on streaming: Ferraro is giving his ancient rainforest a proper burial, to disintegrate slowly on cassette tapes until they become utterly silent, away from screaming crowds, hauntological cold hellscapes, commercialism, or even the concept of a dollar. I can imagine the voices on those tapes will chant brilliantly as their volumes fade away with dust.